"So, you unknowingly received hints, and with the other party's hypnosis, it turned out like that."

Zhou Tianhao, who had just woken up, after listening to Lin Chi's explanation, reached out and pressed his forehead:

"That's right..." He gritted his teeth.

He was busy every day and did not notice the abnormal changes at home. If he had been more sensitive, this time might not have happened.

"Don't think too much, it's meaningless to regret now." Lin Chi looked down at Zhou Tianhao sitting on the sofa: "The most urgent task now is to let the girl wake up by herself."

Taking action rashly while connecting may damage the girl's consciousness. But as long as Zhou Tianhao's sister can escape from the virtual world, with Lin Chi's exoskeleton, it is a piece of cake to open the hatch door of the game warehouse with the exoskeleton on Lin Chi.

"But we can't find the entrance to that virtual space at all." Zhou Tianhao lowered his head: "Unless the monster continues to hypnotize, he is not a fool..."

"Well, he probably won't hypnotize us again." Lin Chi nodded.

With the lessons from the last time, the "monster" who controlled Zhou Tianhao's sister might have transferred the game warehouse to another place. Even if the game warehouse is still in the basement, it is difficult for them to reconnect to the virtual world with "Sophia" and "Blake".

But if we can negotiate with those people...

Lin Chi gave Frankenstein orders to try to contact "A" who had talked to Zhou Tianhao's sister, and then sat on the sofa, picked up a can of ice coke taken out of Zhou Tianhao's refrigerator, raised his head and took a bite.

"Don't blame yourself too much." Lin Chi turned his head and looked at the old classmate sitting beside him and bowed his head: "We still have hope."

"Is there really still?" Zhou Tianhao punched the sofa: "Don't comfort me, it's all my fault..."

"I'm serious."

Before Lin Chi finished speaking, Frankenstein had already sent a message:

"Finished him."

"So fast?" Lin Chi asked in surprise.

"The other party may still be monitoring the building." Frankenstein replied: "He wants to talk to you."

"OK." Lin Chi nodded, picked up his phone and walked towards Zhou Tianhao's bedroom.

"What are you going to do?" Zhou Tianhao's voice was deep.

"Wait for me a while, I will analyze some clues." Lin Chi casually said a reason, then turned around and closed the door.

Zhou Tianhao's emotions are still unstable. Now that the guy can communicate with the enemy who is suspected to be the mastermind, it may repeat the situation in the warehouse.

In order to avoid unnecessary trouble, Lin Chi also chose to have a conversation with the other party:

Added the other party’s friend from Frankenstein. Lin Chi looked at the other party’s default black human avatar and entered a line of greetings: “Hello.”

A second later, a line of black words appeared on the phone screen:

"I'm watching you."

"Well, I know." Lin Chi's reply was very calm.

"You're nervous."

"No, it's because my friend is very nervous." Lin Chi replied.

Even though Lin Chi learned that he was being monitored, he was still not panicked. He leaned his upper body against the wooden chair and his legs were placed beside the bed, posing in a comfortable position he was used to, and continued to chat with the other party on his mobile phone.

"Aren't you afraid?" A sent a message.

"What's there to be afraid of?" Lin Chi replied: "Can you still kill me?"

"Maybe it can."

"I won't talk about this." Lin Chi ignored the other party's threat and quickly entered the text: "I said, can you return that girl to us? You are kidnapping."

"She is part of our plan." The other party's answer was honest: "So are you."

"Plan to abduct a girl?" Lin Chi said sarcastically.

“Our plan is much greater than that,” A said. “IMHO, you can’t stop it.”

"Since that's the case, what about let's join us? I also want to go to that world to see it." Lin Chi sent a message.

As long as you can enter that virtual world, you may find hope to get the girl away. But as Lin Chi expected, the other party obviously would not agree so easily:

"You are not in the invitation."

"Then why are you monitoring us?" Lin Chi asked.

“Nothing to be told.”

Realizing that the other party was not so easy to be fooled, Lin Chi thought about it and sent another message:

"I know who you are."

"You know nothing." A's reply seemed to be sarcastic.

"You are the 'Oasis Army'." Lin Chi said his speculation.

“…”

The other party issued an ellipsis and the avatar became dusty.

"Did I make the decision?" Lin Chi continued to type: "Let me tell you another news, I still know where 'Massarah' is."

——The Oasis Army is right to follow the "leniency" of Massarah and continue to attack the players.

After Lin Chi sent this message, A's avatar lit up again:

"Who are you?"

"Passenger." Lin Chi gave a perfunctory reply.

"You're lying."

"If you want to know, how about let's join the game?" Lin Chi took the opportunity to put forward the conditions: "It seems that you can temporarily block human memory. As long as we block our memory, there will be no storm. By the way, we can have a few more experimental products. Don't consider it?"

"I will communicate with my partner."

After saying this, A's avatar darkened again.

"That's right..."

Lin Chi put away his cell phone and returned to the living room full of garbage, and happened to meet Zhou Tianhao who had just stood up.

"What were you doing just now?" Zhou Tianhao seemed to be still suspicious.

"I talked to the mastermind." Lin Chi's answer was very refreshing.

"You boy..." Zhou Tianhao clenched his fists.

Seeing that Zhou Tianhao was about to have an attack, Lin Chi hurriedly said, "Don't worry, he will contact me on his own initiative. After all... our conditions have been agreed upon."

"What did you say to him?" Zhou Tianhao asked.

"Nothing." Lin Chi mentioned this question and then suddenly said: "I probably know what they are going to do."

Speaking of this topic, Zhou Tianhao gritted his teeth: "It's a damn human experiment..."

"No, I don't think that's their main purpose." Lin Chi shook his head: "The experiment is only accompaniment, and their purpose should be 'revenge' and 'entertainment'."

"What do you mean?" Zhou Tianhao stared at him with a frown.

Hearing Zhou Tianhao's question, Lin Chi sat on the sofa, picked up the Coke that he had just drunk halfway, and began to tell the story to the anxious man:

"I once met a person in a virtual game. He is the product of a system bug and will never die. Even if he is killed, he will be resurrected soon."

"What's scary is that although he will not die, his body will still age. As time goes by, his body has become unimaginable weak due to aging, and his whole body is like a skeleton in human skin."

"Later one day, this person learned about the existence of the 'real world' where we are. He sadly discovered that his life, in the eyes of us players, was just a useless toy."

"This angry old man decided to retaliate against players in the real world. He used some means to turn some of the players he had contacted into a madman who had lost his mind..."

As soon as these words came out, Zhou Tianhao suddenly widened his eyes: "Are you talking about 'psychedelic'?"

"Now, the old man has been imprisoned and can no longer retaliate against society. But he still has a dangerous army under his command, called the "Oasis Army."

Speaking of this, Lin Chi coughed: "The next part is my inference. I have no definite evidence: the Oasis Army may, like the old man, intend to retaliate against the humans who have fun with them. However, the Oasis Army chose not to make people crazy, but to treat the human beings in the same way."

"What does it mean?" Zhou Tianhao's voice became hoarse.

"It means that the Oasis Army may be trying to treat us humans as ‘entertainment objects’ like real-world players.”

"I don't understand." Zhou Tianhao's face turned gloomy: "Can you explain it in detail?"

"This is just my speculation." Lin Chi put the empty bottle aside: "I was thinking that if I were an NPC in the game, after I learned the truth, I might choose this kind of revenge - luring humans in the real world into the virtual world, and then tampering with these human memories, turning these people who were originally players into NPCs' "plays"."

"What do you mean... NPCs have started to 'play' humans?" Zhou Tianhao finally understood.

"That's what I think." Lin Chi nodded.

If Zhou Tianhao's sister's experience was really done by the Oasis Army, combined with the various strange things before and the conversation with A just now, this is the conclusion that Lin Chi can draw.

——Unlike Massarah, the Oasis Army chose a more mode of revenge, but it was unusually ironic.

As people often said decades ago: "You are playing games, don't let the game play you." The girl who is still lying in the strange metal basin may be in a state of being "played by games"!

"This cannot be true!" Zhou Tianhao shook his head irritably: "It's so ridiculous..."

The NPCs in the game began to treat real humans as playthings, which sounds strange. But...

“I also hope my inference is wrong.”
To be continued...